Tuesday, 8 March 2011

The Structure of Thriller Openings

When you look at various film openings they will have used one of these three different structures for their opening sequence. A narrative opening with the titles running throughout, a discrete title sequence and titles over a blank screen, followed by the narrative opening: are the three different structure of thriller openings.

An example for a narrative opening with the titles running throughout can be seen in 'The Stepfather' and 'The Shinning'. In these films the narrative starts immediately and we are introduced tot eh location, settings then character. Then the narrative is carried on by the titles. In 'The Stepfather', the titles appear throughout the film whilst the opening sequence is playing. But, in the important scenes were the viewer can see the actors face there are no titles. This is because the actors face is important and trying to tell the audience to look at his face and making the audience wonder the significance of the actor’s actions.

An example for a discrete title sequence is 'Seven' or 'Arlington Road'. In discrete titles sequences the sequence is edited separately and stands out from the opening scene. The font are stylised and edited a great deal and they support nearly all of the opening credits and film titles. In 'Seven', the titles have been stylised and edited a lot as they are in a sans serif font and they disappear into the film.

An example for an opening scene, which has credits over a blank screen followed by the narrative opening, is 'Donnie Darko'. In these kinds of openings scenes the movie begins with the titles running over a blank screen. This is often shown with sound effects or a soundtrack, before introducing any narrative or introducing images. The titles continue to show over the images. In 'Donnie Darko' the titles are shown right at the start of the film and then the opening scene is played. Around, the end of the opening scene at 1.51 seconds the title is shown. The titles are in san serif fonts and in a bold and white font.